Candles and flowers placed at the spot where Kenton Haggard was murdered in Fresno.
Photograph: Courtesy Karen Adell Scot

The transgender community in Fresno remains on high alert following the murder last week of Kenton Haggard, who was stabbed fatally in the neck moments after talking to occupants of a light-coloured SUV.

Many transgender people in the central California city are staying at home during the night, fearful that they could also be targeted, according to advocacy groups, speaking five days after the attack. There have been no arrests in the case, which is the 11th reported killing of a trans woman in the US this year.

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On Friday, police identified the 66-year-old victim, a transgender woman, as male, heightening concerns in the LGBT community that transgender people are not being treated as the gender identity of their choosing, sparking what Zoyer Zyndel of Trans-e-Motion in Fresno described as widespread outrage.

LGBT groups have called for the murder to be classified as a hate crime. “We want justice,” Zyndel said on Tuesday. “There is definitely a sense of fear in the city.”

Zyndel said families of transgender persons want to believe law enforcement “has our best interests in mind”, adding: “Families are more worried than they would be normally and many transgender [persons] are apprehensive about going out at night.”

“There have been efforts to contact police,” Zyndel said. “And police have not yet responded or met with activists.”

The attack occurred at about 2am on Blackstone Cornell avenues. Surveillance footage shows Haggard being attacked shortly after being called over to the vehicle. She was pronounced dead at hospital later that Thursday morning.

When asked about murder and the refusal to identify Haggard as female, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) said: “This once again reveals how far we still have to go in order to ensure that all members of the LGBT community have equal access to basic dignity and fair treatment.”

Kenton Haggard seen on surveillance camera before being stabbed in Fresno. Photograph: Handout

HRC and others had called on police to investigate the crime as a hate crime, but Lieutenant Joe Gomez of Fresno police said there is no evidence that the murder was a hate crime, and added that the department refers to victims by their physiological sex and only notes a person’s preferential gender identity if relevant to investigations.

Haggard’s murder was the second transgender murder last week – 25-year-old India Clark was beaten to death on 21 July – and the 11th in 2015. The HRC president Chad Griffin said in a statement to the media that “the level of violence targeting transgender people, particularly transgender women of color, is a national crisis that the LGBT movement has a responsibility to confront”.

In San Francisco, a feeling of trepidation has fallen over the transgender community, who joined other activists on Saturday in Los Angeles to protest against violence directed at transgender persons.

It was only last year the FBI included for the first time statistics for hate crimes reported based on gender identity. HRC calls the FBI’s move part of “important first steps” but argued more effort and public awareness is needed to help stop gender-based violence.

This article was amended on 26 May 2016 as a result of a fact-checking investigation. A quote that could not be verified has been removed. A previous version of this article also incorrectly referred to the Human Rights Campaign as the Human Rights Committee.